So after days of scouring town for knick-knacks, whatzits, bagged rice, sponges, kitty litter and countless other props, assembling all of the scattered noisemakers, poring over the scripts countless times and at least two twelve hour days of tireless cue-to-cues and rehearsals, the sound effects team was ready.  The voice actors, by the sounds of it, were on top of things themselves.  And by golly, the band just made things look easy.  With about every possible technical issue happening and being resolved, about 6:30 Friday night we had a precious breath of fresh air and an hour before showtime.

The funny thing with all of this, is that after all the work — days building the set, the hours the writers spent on their scripts, and everyone else did preparing to realize those scripts, the marketing, the mixing, the satellite uplinks, the rehearsal time… it all went into two and half solid hours with no retakes.  Talk about game-time!

The audience was in for a terrible treat, whether packed into the West Plains Civic Center or tuning in from any part of the globe, what with two 30ish minute full plays, a 5 min drama (featuring alien turkeys), two improv sketches, a mind-bending experimental music piece and a variety of short narratives… all in 6.1 surround sound!

When it was all through, hardly having realized that the whole thing was over, we tore the set down in many 2 hours flat.  The incredible, sound-resistant, microphone-laden, sound prop ridden stage was again a blank set of wooden floors on concrete.  The flurry of commotion faded, whirlwinding towards the community “Yellow House” where the off-the-wall cast party was already in full force.

With plenty of food and beverage to sate the army of triumphant radio dramatists, and rock-the-roof-off music provided by the Native Radio Theater contingent, ferocious chatter, ebullience and joy extended long into the late hours, with me finally turning in when Dave Taylor yelled out “Can someone cut the chirping bird track!” as dawn approached.

And then, with murmured goodbyes to the last stragglers and a feeling of dread of the coming morning, it all faded away.  Three hours later, astonishingly less groggy than anticipated, I piled my equipment back into my bags (baffled at how many extra CDs seemed to have shown up) and staggered out to where the shuttle was idling, more goodbyes were being said, and we all looked ahead to another traumatizing day of travel.

So, eleven hours later, Maine never looked sweeter, and eleven more hours after that, it’s with warmth I think about the welcoming and passionate group at the NATF, and the truly awesome time we all had doing what we love, talking about what we love, and being with people who love it as much as we all do.  While I can’t attest to the dynamism of West Plains cuisine, it was an amazingly welcoming community and a true home away from home.

And that’s a wrap!  Until next year, at least, when I already get the feeling that the long road to Missouri will be calling back to me again.

Well, a little late on the gun on this, BUT… after much adventure, thrift-store shopping, cue-to-cue, rehearsal and precious few shouting matches, the amazing live shows have come together with yours truly taking rather compelling roles as doorbell 1, bag of junk and peach eating. Tune in live, while you still can, at NATF.org, and hear all about the wrap and maybe hear the non-live broadcast a little later…

That is, once I’ve recovered from the after party and am fighting off a hangover on the long ride home…

Alright, how many other opportunities do you have to strap a several grand rig to your chest, kick off your shoes, and dive beneath a helicopter to try your luck getting a pristine recording?  Well, that was the scene yesterday as a team of 20+ audio addicts hit the field as West Plains’ Air Evac team graciously volunteered a helicopter and pilot to conduct a few landings and flybys for our rather peculiar artistic motivations.

Even better, we got to dust the leaves off, dump our equipment, and send the results to legendary Sound Designer Randy Thom, to see what he had to say (especially since one of the best-sounding recordings was with a $50 Belkin mic and an iPod).  And every word he said was precious gold.

Meanwhile, I joined the live sound effects team which so far involved a trip to raid the local theater’s sound effects closet, more trips to get the odds and ends which we still needed (10 power strips and perfume-free, super-fine kitty litter being hard items to find this late in the afternoon), and my grating my knuckles apart while aggressively gutting a coconut.  Now it’s time for rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal as we take this big pile of random junk and make beautiful sounds from it.

And hey, we got to play with the telephone used in Sorry, Wrong Number!

Watering holes are few to find in this neck of the woods, where else can you find a cold drink in a glass as hazy as the thunder-cloud ridden sky in the late afternoon?

Wow.  Okay.  So since last year, I felt I learned a hell of a lot about audio, though I think in the last two days I’ve learned as much as I have in the last year.  Or at least, I’ve learned about a few key principles and the thinking that goes on in the mind of the seasoned pros, which is that kind of experiential learning that you come all the way to this kind of thing to learn about.

After a riveting breakfast at local coffee shop Cup O’ Joe, we broke into our first workshop sessions — for me, a writing for audio course moderated by Joel Pierson and then a recording shop lead by a cast of serious audio professionals… broken in the middle somewhere by a lunch put on by the good graces of Sennheiser, who sent a pro to get grilled by NATF’s best while we drooled over top-end Neumann mics.

All seemed on track until the reality of dinner loomed overhead.  Sunday in downtown West Plains makes Jerome, AZ look like a budding metropolis.  And with no means of transportation except my feet (and a blazing 85+ degree sun overhead), things started to look grim.

Luckily, I intercepted a group of other NATF’ers hanging out at the Civic Center and through a variety of hoop jumping and coercing (okay, accepting the generosity) of strangers, we caravaned over to a modest but delicious Mexican restaurant, El Charro’s.  Sadly, this mad us all terribly late for the Podcasting and New Media round table.

Though I may have missed the first half of this vigorous session, I jumped in for what I could and my mind was not alone in a buzzing of possibility… centralized sites for audio theater sharing, PRX-style… an audio-theater only Audible?  Though the road is a long ways ahead, we all pretty much shared the conviction that the technology and the people are here, and now it’s just a matter of pulling it all together.

Well, it was with a twinge of hopeful melancholy that I said adieu to the beach at 1 in the morning and caught three hours of sleep before making the final arrangements to head to the airport. Thirteen hours later, barely hanging on with catnaps through the day, hundreds of milligrams of caffeine and sheer iron will, here I am with giddy expectation at West Plains, MO for the National Audio Theater Festival.

It was my first flight with Air Tran and my initial reservations quickly melted away upon seeing a big logo emblazoned on the Boeing 717 I boarded my first leg of the flight — The flight has XM Satellite Radio! What a treat, especially for someone who’s been on the fence like me, wondering where it’s worth to buck up 13 bucks a month for Sonic Theater. Well, my mind was changed for about twenty minutes as I caught the end of Tom Lopez’s Moon Over Morrocco (little was I to know I’d meet the man in a little over 8 hours) before the station roughly seguewayed into a four-hour session of Jane Austin’s “Emily” read by a narrator propped up by life support. Oh well.

After being cramped in flight for several hours and changing planes twice, I staggered off in Memphis and quickly found the band of hoodlums assembled for the NATF shuttle. And boy, did I know I was home!

First was Luke, with Sennheiser headphones around his neck, then Tom Lopez himself, Joel Pierson of Mind Ear’s Audio, the ebullient Bill Dufris and dozens of others. It’s pretty cool when you can have known someone for less than four minutes and already be talking about multitrack editing rigs and the merits of Sony Vegas vs. Adobe Audition vs. ProTools.

All the flights eventually made it in and so our merry band was off, for yet another heavy leg of the journey — the 3 1/2 hour shuttle right to West Plains proper, across the corn-fed plains of south Arkansas. We marveled about sights such as the “Kum & Go,” towns of Pop. 112, and Buckshaw county where you should be prepared to be searched for drugs — zero tolerance! as well as talked shop even more before we all succumbed to the lack of sleep and lull of the comfortable tour bus.

Rain storm, corn fields, and relatively few incursions with angry locals later, we crossed into West Plains and the weary travelers could set our bags down… As well as pick up a heavy Conference packet with cool Sennheiser schwag and an amazing workbook. With hardly a breath of fresh air, we were on our way again to an opening reception at West Plain’s Cafe 37.

And so it began… more talk with dozens of writers, musicians, engineers, voices, veterans and budding amateurs. In addition to a great meal (where I did my best but still couldn’t stop the wait staff from plying me with wine) we saw the many founders of the conference take the mic and enchant us with stories of the festival’s modest, but spectacular, origins.

Enthralled with the promise of playing with really cool gear, as well as learning how to use it better than ever before, and generally just bask with others who are serious about this art, we all went home to sleep to wonderful dreams of microphone elves.

All to start a 12-hour workday on Sunday.

At this very moment, I’m frantically burning CDs, backing up my laptop, printing out scripts, plane reservations, conference instructions and grabbing my best pan-Africa shirt in preparation for the National Audio Theater Festival’s Week Long Workshop.

Yes, friends, I leave the absolutely stunning vistas of coastal Maine to be assaulted by chiggers, mosquitoes and cottonmouths in West Plains, Missouri. After all, the opportunity to hang out with radio drama’s most enthusiastic producers, writers, voices, and miscellaneous minions.

If you’re going, well, I’ll see you there! Or zap me an email and I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for you. Bummed you’ll miss the plane? Despair not! I’ll be blogging regularly from the Conference, giving you the play-by-play, the who’s-who, and all the dirty gossip from what looks to be an exciting and ever so audio geeky week.

Oh, and by the by, FinalRune Productions has freshly stamped CDs to celebrate… grab yours now!